Twenty-year-old Pat Bugden (1897-1917), a hotelkeeper from the north coast of New South Wales before enlistment, was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross for his outstanding bravery over three days during one of the Australians' successful step-by-step advances in late September 1917. On two occasions, when held up by intense fire from machine-guns, he led small parties to silence the enemy posts. Five times he rescued wounded men trapped by intense shelling and machine-gun fire. Once, seeing that an Australian corporal had been taken prisoner, he single-handedly rushed to his comrade's aid, shooting and bayoneting the enemy. He kept fighting until he was killed.